What is Growth ? Learn How to Use Experimental Marketing Now
Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2024 2:58 am
Growth Hacking is a way to bring about large and constant growth for your company. When you stop to think about it, who doesn't want that? However, since it is a new subject, there are many doubts about it.
Adopted by startups, in particular, this is one of the reasons why these companies are growing so quickly. So, if this is what you are looking for for your business, keep reading the post.
We will show you everything about Growth Hacking, including the definition and how to apply it to your company , whether it is small, medium or large. Check it out!
What is Growth Hacking?
Growth Hacking is also known as Experimental Marketing . The person who invented this term was Sean Ellis and it is no coincidence that he is the founder of GrowthHackers.com , known today as the largest portal with content on the subject.
According to Ellis:
Growth Hacking is a set of strategies that aims to accelerate the growth of companies.
“Growth” in English means “Growth” and “Hacking” is the same as computer hackers. “Hack” is a gap, space or cut. Hacking, then, is nothing more than finding ways to exploit these gaps, creating strategies aimed at very fast results for the growth of a company.
The truth is that the concept is much simpler than the practice, as finding these “triggers” to be activated and promote the company’s growth involves a lot of experimentation, analysis and attempts.
The biggest advantage of Growth Hacking is that it can be low-cost . After all, companies don't usually have a lot of money to invest, especially when they are startups. In practice, the more theoretical concept of Growth Hacking is new, but it has been practiced for quite some time.
A great example is Facebook. Who remembers when it first started and worked on an invitation basis? This gave it an idea of “exclusivity”, which made people crazy to join.
It is one of the most classic strategies that was also used by Nubank, Tinder and many others.
How to do Growth Hacking?
Now that you understand the concept, it is important to make it clear that Growth Hacking is not simple . As mentioned above, it is Experimental Marketing, and these do not always work. In other words, there is no magic formula.
The most important thing is to understand that Growth Hacking is a mindset . The professional needs to have a mindset focused only on growth, since that is the main objective at the moment.
However, there are some steps that are common to Growth Hacking: constantly observing the data, identifying the “hacks” and how they can be used to improve your Marketing and your company.
What skills should a Growth Hacker have?
Some companies that started applying this strategy ended up creating the position of Growth Hacker.
However, growth hacking techniques are more likely to work when the entire marketing team adopts growth hacking as a way of thinking .
A growth hacker, in addition to having theoretical and conceptual knowledge of marketing, must have a deep understanding of processes, experiment methodology, technology and, of course, consumer psychology to know the best triggers and when to use each one.
Another essential piece of knowledge is knowing how the consumer thinks, reacts and is motivated throughout their purchasing journey.
In this way, marketing concepts are put into practice to find triggers and experiments aimed at the company's growth.
If you want to start with growth hacking in your company, start by encouraging your marketing team to think like one.
Your team needs to learn how to find, explore and obtain scientific evidence of which triggers will generate growth for your company.
How is the sales funnel designed in Growth Hacking?
An interesting difference between Growth Hacking and more traditional Marketing is the sales funnel . The Growth funnel is Y-shaped . At the top two ends are the australia business fax list traditional Inbound and Outbound funnels , which you are certainly already familiar with.
Marketing and Sales Y Funnel
Y-shaped Marketing and Sales Funnel, a Growth Marketing concept that integrates Outbound + Inbound
However, at the bottom, they come together to form a new funnel, where retention, delight and recommendation exist . The last point is the most important, and it is where Growth Hacking is most successful.
Returning to the example of the Facebook hack, the users themselves were the ones sending the invitations. In other words, they went through the entire Y-shaped funnel stage, until they recommended and invited friends to join the network.
Anyone who works in marketing is already quite familiar with the sales funnel. Did you know that growth hacking also has its own funnel? And it has a very interesting twist.
The growth hacking funnel is known as the Pirate Funnel , and was named by Dave McClure .
The funnel has this name because in English the initials of its five stages ( Acquisition , Activation , Retention , Referral and Revenue ) form the word AARRR, which forms the pirate interjection.
Growth Marketing Funnel
Pirate Funnel AAARRR, Growth Hacking concept
Growth hacking actions are strategically designed to optimize the six stages of the pirate funnel:
Consciousness or Awareness – brings together practices to attract a potential client;
Acquisition – tactics to persuade and convert a potential customer;
Activation – when the focus is on delivering the first good experience to the customer;
Retention – stage at which customers are satisfied and choose to continue using your product;
Revenue – when customers are generating recurring revenue for the company;
Indications or Referral – when they are recommending your product or service to friends and acquaintances.
First step
The first step is to identify each stage of the pirate funnel within your consumer's journey towards your company. With that, list which stages present the most urgent problems and start applying growth hacking there.
The importance of the entire team thinking like a growth hacker begins at this stage. Once you know where to start, you need to get the marketing team together and brainstorm ideas to solve the problem .
Second step
So that you don't get lost in the midst of so many ideas, the tip here is to group the ideas in each stage of the funnel and do a quick analysis of how it can impact, how much it would cost, how complex the implementation would be and what the probability of success is.
When selecting ideas, it is also recommended that you read online to see if there are any successful cases implementing ideas similar to the one the marketing team suggested and if there is any other relevant information that could help you select or exclude this idea at the time.
Third step
With the ideas selected, it's time to put the experiments into practice. This is a phase of questions and statistics.
Let's look at a more practical example: Let's assume that there is a statistic that when the customer gets to the time to register on the website, there is a 30% dropout rate. In other words, 30% abandon the cart.
Is the registration form too long? How about trying to make it less complex. What information should be removed from this form? How will we compensate for the loss of this information that was previously asked of customers?
Fourth step
Finally, with these questions defined, an A/B test is created to see if there is a percentage variation. With the test carried out and the objective results, it is necessary to analyze this experiment.
At this stage, growth hacking knowledge is about proving as quickly as possible whether a hypothesis is correct or not.
Now that you know the concept and how to start the growth hacking strategy in your company, you can start training this way of thinking within your marketing team.
How to put Growth Hacking actions into practice?
Now that you've seen some great examples of Growth Hacking, let's close the post by showing you how to put some of these actions into practice.
To be a Growth Hacker, you need to have 4 skills: knowing the market, knowing the audience, being ahead of the curve and finding gaps . So, here is a step-by-step guide that you can follow:
1. Have a product that people actually want
It may seem obvious, but many companies take risks with products that aren’t necessarily what the public wants. That’s why it’s important to experiment.
Implement MVP and Lean Inception concepts to validate a product quickly and without a large investment. The goal is to achieve fast results.
That's why you need to know the market and where you're going. For example, when Facebook first started, making games was a way to get ahead and grow really fast. If there was nothing to play, your game was the only option.
It is a Growth Hacking strategy that aims at a gap that currently does not exist, as the market is very saturated. With this in mind, does TikTok present any gap?
2. Know your audience
Every product has a similar cycle. First, it is adopted by innovators and then by early adopters . The problem is that many die out there, as there is a huge gap between this group and the general public.
Adopted by startups, in particular, this is one of the reasons why these companies are growing so quickly. So, if this is what you are looking for for your business, keep reading the post.
We will show you everything about Growth Hacking, including the definition and how to apply it to your company , whether it is small, medium or large. Check it out!
What is Growth Hacking?
Growth Hacking is also known as Experimental Marketing . The person who invented this term was Sean Ellis and it is no coincidence that he is the founder of GrowthHackers.com , known today as the largest portal with content on the subject.
According to Ellis:
Growth Hacking is a set of strategies that aims to accelerate the growth of companies.
“Growth” in English means “Growth” and “Hacking” is the same as computer hackers. “Hack” is a gap, space or cut. Hacking, then, is nothing more than finding ways to exploit these gaps, creating strategies aimed at very fast results for the growth of a company.
The truth is that the concept is much simpler than the practice, as finding these “triggers” to be activated and promote the company’s growth involves a lot of experimentation, analysis and attempts.
The biggest advantage of Growth Hacking is that it can be low-cost . After all, companies don't usually have a lot of money to invest, especially when they are startups. In practice, the more theoretical concept of Growth Hacking is new, but it has been practiced for quite some time.
A great example is Facebook. Who remembers when it first started and worked on an invitation basis? This gave it an idea of “exclusivity”, which made people crazy to join.
It is one of the most classic strategies that was also used by Nubank, Tinder and many others.
How to do Growth Hacking?
Now that you understand the concept, it is important to make it clear that Growth Hacking is not simple . As mentioned above, it is Experimental Marketing, and these do not always work. In other words, there is no magic formula.
The most important thing is to understand that Growth Hacking is a mindset . The professional needs to have a mindset focused only on growth, since that is the main objective at the moment.
However, there are some steps that are common to Growth Hacking: constantly observing the data, identifying the “hacks” and how they can be used to improve your Marketing and your company.
What skills should a Growth Hacker have?
Some companies that started applying this strategy ended up creating the position of Growth Hacker.
However, growth hacking techniques are more likely to work when the entire marketing team adopts growth hacking as a way of thinking .
A growth hacker, in addition to having theoretical and conceptual knowledge of marketing, must have a deep understanding of processes, experiment methodology, technology and, of course, consumer psychology to know the best triggers and when to use each one.
Another essential piece of knowledge is knowing how the consumer thinks, reacts and is motivated throughout their purchasing journey.
In this way, marketing concepts are put into practice to find triggers and experiments aimed at the company's growth.
If you want to start with growth hacking in your company, start by encouraging your marketing team to think like one.
Your team needs to learn how to find, explore and obtain scientific evidence of which triggers will generate growth for your company.
How is the sales funnel designed in Growth Hacking?
An interesting difference between Growth Hacking and more traditional Marketing is the sales funnel . The Growth funnel is Y-shaped . At the top two ends are the australia business fax list traditional Inbound and Outbound funnels , which you are certainly already familiar with.
Marketing and Sales Y Funnel
Y-shaped Marketing and Sales Funnel, a Growth Marketing concept that integrates Outbound + Inbound
However, at the bottom, they come together to form a new funnel, where retention, delight and recommendation exist . The last point is the most important, and it is where Growth Hacking is most successful.
Returning to the example of the Facebook hack, the users themselves were the ones sending the invitations. In other words, they went through the entire Y-shaped funnel stage, until they recommended and invited friends to join the network.
Anyone who works in marketing is already quite familiar with the sales funnel. Did you know that growth hacking also has its own funnel? And it has a very interesting twist.
The growth hacking funnel is known as the Pirate Funnel , and was named by Dave McClure .
The funnel has this name because in English the initials of its five stages ( Acquisition , Activation , Retention , Referral and Revenue ) form the word AARRR, which forms the pirate interjection.
Growth Marketing Funnel
Pirate Funnel AAARRR, Growth Hacking concept
Growth hacking actions are strategically designed to optimize the six stages of the pirate funnel:
Consciousness or Awareness – brings together practices to attract a potential client;
Acquisition – tactics to persuade and convert a potential customer;
Activation – when the focus is on delivering the first good experience to the customer;
Retention – stage at which customers are satisfied and choose to continue using your product;
Revenue – when customers are generating recurring revenue for the company;
Indications or Referral – when they are recommending your product or service to friends and acquaintances.
First step
The first step is to identify each stage of the pirate funnel within your consumer's journey towards your company. With that, list which stages present the most urgent problems and start applying growth hacking there.
The importance of the entire team thinking like a growth hacker begins at this stage. Once you know where to start, you need to get the marketing team together and brainstorm ideas to solve the problem .
Second step
So that you don't get lost in the midst of so many ideas, the tip here is to group the ideas in each stage of the funnel and do a quick analysis of how it can impact, how much it would cost, how complex the implementation would be and what the probability of success is.
When selecting ideas, it is also recommended that you read online to see if there are any successful cases implementing ideas similar to the one the marketing team suggested and if there is any other relevant information that could help you select or exclude this idea at the time.
Third step
With the ideas selected, it's time to put the experiments into practice. This is a phase of questions and statistics.
Let's look at a more practical example: Let's assume that there is a statistic that when the customer gets to the time to register on the website, there is a 30% dropout rate. In other words, 30% abandon the cart.
Is the registration form too long? How about trying to make it less complex. What information should be removed from this form? How will we compensate for the loss of this information that was previously asked of customers?
Fourth step
Finally, with these questions defined, an A/B test is created to see if there is a percentage variation. With the test carried out and the objective results, it is necessary to analyze this experiment.
At this stage, growth hacking knowledge is about proving as quickly as possible whether a hypothesis is correct or not.
Now that you know the concept and how to start the growth hacking strategy in your company, you can start training this way of thinking within your marketing team.
How to put Growth Hacking actions into practice?
Now that you've seen some great examples of Growth Hacking, let's close the post by showing you how to put some of these actions into practice.
To be a Growth Hacker, you need to have 4 skills: knowing the market, knowing the audience, being ahead of the curve and finding gaps . So, here is a step-by-step guide that you can follow:
1. Have a product that people actually want
It may seem obvious, but many companies take risks with products that aren’t necessarily what the public wants. That’s why it’s important to experiment.
Implement MVP and Lean Inception concepts to validate a product quickly and without a large investment. The goal is to achieve fast results.
That's why you need to know the market and where you're going. For example, when Facebook first started, making games was a way to get ahead and grow really fast. If there was nothing to play, your game was the only option.
It is a Growth Hacking strategy that aims at a gap that currently does not exist, as the market is very saturated. With this in mind, does TikTok present any gap?
2. Know your audience
Every product has a similar cycle. First, it is adopted by innovators and then by early adopters . The problem is that many die out there, as there is a huge gap between this group and the general public.